This special issue aims to create a space for rethinking current approaches to “complex orebodies”. Our introductory paper surveys recent developments in the field and identifies a range of challenges that are affecting our collective ability to engage the complex systems associated with future global metal supply. Interdisciplinary mining research remains in its infancy, with single-discipline, technical studies continuing to dominate. Social and environmental factors that lie “beyond the fence” are too often over-simplified and overlooked in resource characterisation and extractive industries. In this special issue, we profile developments in the field and engage the challenges of working in inter-disciplinary, boundary-spanning research in mining. Our paper introduces the special issue, and invites contributing authors to critically engage the conditions and prospects that lie ahead.